Chapter 3: The stepmother's greed...

Evelyn POV

“You want to know if I’m here to claim my prize?” I asked with a false sweetness in my voice. “There’s my reply.”

The engagement rings hit Adrian’s chest with satisfying force before clattering to the marble floor, the sound echoing through the suddenly silent ballroom like gunshots.

Every conversation stopped. Every champagne glass paused halfway to painted lips. The only sound was my steady breathing and the soft drip of pool water from my ruined dress.

“Yes, I’m here to claim my prize,” I said with a calm smile. “You see, I not only retrieved your ring, but also returned mine along with it.”

He slowly raised his eyes, looking up and down at me with contempt that he didn’t bother to hide.

“Evelyn,” he said icily, his voice cutting through the hushed atmosphere, “if you’re going to lose your mind, can you first read the room?. Today is the engagement party you desperately begged for.”

Desperately begged for.

The words were explicitly chosen to remind everyone present that I was the one who was pathetic in this relationship. The woman who’d thrown herself at Adrian Whitmore so shamelessly that even his family had taken pity on me.

In my previous life, those words would have sent me into a spiral of apologetic explanations. I would have rushed to pick up the rings, would have stammered about temporary madness, would have done anything to smooth over the embarrassment and get back into his good graces.

Not this time.

I sneered and said calmly, “The engagement party I desperately begged for? Of course, I can lose my mind however I want. Even if I don’t lose my mind, in your eyes I’m just a substitute anyway, aren’t I?”

For the briefest of moments, I saw something flicker in his cold, grey eyes. Regret? Surprise? I couldn’t place a finger on it, and before I had time to decipher it, it had instantly vanished, replaced by his mask of indifference.

“I don’t have time to fool around with you,” he said in that maddeningly calm tone that made me want to scream. “The ceremony is about to begin. If you still want to get engaged, go clean yourself up.”

He turned to leave, dismissing me as easily as he would wave away a servant.

Anger flared in my chest at the assumption that I would come crawling back after he’d humiliated me, that I had nowhere else to go. It made my blood boil.

I was about to step forward, to finally let out all the bitterness I’d stored for three years, but just as I opened my mouth to retort, from the corner of my eye, I saw someone running toward us.

“Oh no, oh no, oh no!” The voice was shrill with panic, cutting through the murmurs that had begun to fill the room.

It was my stepmother, Victoria Bennett. Her perfectly styled blonde hair bounced as she rushed forward. She was a woman in her late forties who’d spent a fortune trying to look thirty.

Nearly throwing herself at Adrian’s feet, she exclaimed loudly.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Adrian! My daughter has lost her mind. Please don’t hold it against her. You know how emotional young women can be!”

Without waiting for his response, she immediately bent down and began scrambling around on the marble floor, searching for the engagement rings like a dog hunting for scraps. The sight was both pathetic and infuriating. This woman, who’d spent years pushing me toward Adrian, was now literally grovelling at his feet.

Adrian took a step backwards, his expression filled with disgust at the sight. Without another glance, he turned on his heel to walk away. I moved to stop him. There were still things on my mind I needed to say, but before I could, Victoria rose to her feet and grabbed my arm roughly.

“Are you out of your mind?” she hissed, her manicured nails digging into my wet skin. “What kind of madness is this? At such an important occasion, with so many people watching! Is this how you plan to secure your future? Do you still want this engagement or not?”

That was when she looked me up and down, finally noticing my drenched dress, ruined makeup, and my hair hanging in wet ropes around my shoulders. Her eyes widened in horror.

“And what have you been doing to get yourself in such a state?” she demanded, hotly. “You look like you’ve been swimming in the fountain! This is your engagement party, Evelyn, not some beach vacation!”

Seeing Victoria’s face—flushed with anger and embarrassment and that familiar greed that had shaped so much of my previous life—brought back a flood of memories. I remembered how excited she’d been when she first learned about my feelings for Adrian, how her eyes had lit up with joy when she realised the Whitmore family’s wealth and influence.

She’d been the one encouraging me to chase after Adrian, the one who’d coached me on how to dress like Isabella, how to style my hair, how to laugh in that particular way that supposedly drove men wild. She’d orchestrated so much of my transformation from Evelyn Bennett into a pale imitation of Adrian’s true love.

Back then, she had convinced me it was the only path to get Adrian and secure my future. In her eyes, my marriage was merely a stepping stone to wealth and power. She never cared about my happiness, dignity, or heart —only about how she could profit from them.

And now here she was, still playing the same game.

“Listen to me carefully,” Victoria said, leaning close enough that I could smell her expensive perfume mixed with champagne. “You need to hurry up and get cleaned up. After today’s party, you’ll officially be Adrian’s fiancée. This is just the beginning, do you understand?”

Her eyes gleamed with fervour as she continued her lecture.

“In the future, you must seize every opportunity to please Adrian. Dress the way he likes, act the way he prefers, never give him a reason to doubt your devotion. And most importantly—” her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper “—you need to get pregnant with his child as soon as possible. Once you’re carrying the Whitmore heir, Adrian won’t be able to leave you. Think of the wealth, the status you’ll secure for yourself. There is endless wealth and glory for our family!”

Endless wealth and glory?

The words rang in my ears like a bell that, if I weren’t so angry, I would have laughed. Endless wealth and glory had brought me nothing but suffering, humiliation, and untimely death in my previous life. Adrian had abandoned me without hesitation on our wedding day, leaving me to die at the hands of ruthless kidnappers while he married Isabella Clarke in grandeur.

I was nothing but Isabella’s cheap substitute, a fact that everyone in this room understood except the greedy woman standing before me.

I looked down at myself, really seeing my appearance for the first time since my rebirth. Even today, at my engagement party, I was dressed exactly like Isabella. T

he same style of gown Isabella had worn to the Whitmore charity gala last month. The exact shade of lipstick she liked. The same way of styling my hair that Victoria had insisted would “remind Adrian of his childhood sweetheart.”

I remembered the disgusted look in Adrian’s eyes when I’d appeared before him dressed like this in my previous life, how he’d barely been able to look at me, as if my very existence was an insult to Isabella’s memory.

Isabella was the woman Adrian had loved since childhood, and everyone knew it. If not for the deteriorating relationship between the Clarke and Whitmore families over some business dispute, and if not for Margaret Whitmore’s inexplicable fondness for me, Adrian would have married Isabella years ago.

It was because of his mother’s relentless pressure that Adrian had been forced into this engagement with me. Even at that, Adrian didn’t like me; instead, his resentment for me grew by the day.

I was the consolation prize. The acceptable substitute. The woman who could produce Whitmore heirs, while Adrian’s heart belonged to someone else forever.

Victoria was still chattering in my ear, trying to paint a picture of how perfect my future would be if I married Adrian.

“You have to be smart about this, Evelyn. The Whitmores have more money than God, and once you’re part of their family, we’ll never have to worry about anything again. Your father’s company, our social standing, everything depends on this marriage working out...”

Suddenly, scenes from my previous life flashed before my eyes like a slideshow. The warehouse where I’d died. Adrian and Isabella’s grand wedding, their faces glowing with joy as they exchanged vows.

The room around me blurred, the sounds faded, replaced by my gasping breaths as panic clawed at my chest, as the kidnapper’s hands tightened around my throat.

That despair and helplessness that had made my whole body tremble uncontrollably as I realised I was going to die unloved, with no one to mourn me.

The sensation of those hands around my neck made me gasp, and my hands flew up to touch my throat. For a moment, I was back in that warehouse, watching through the grimy window as the man I loved married another woman while I bled on the concrete floor.

I suddenly raised my head, focusing on Victoria’s face—that greedy, excited expression that had haunted my previous life. She was still talking about endless wealth and glory, still trying to manipulate my choices and control my future.

 The hatred and humiliation in my heart reached its peak.